Editorial overview: Sustainability challenges: Agroforestry from the past into the future

Prior to the ‘Green Revolution’, the majority of subsistence farming anywhere in the world involved mixed species, usually including tree products [1]. Pressures towards higher efficiency drove modern agriculture into monocultures; the narrative of the green revolution in developing countries largely followed suit. But in the background, subsistence agroforestry systems have continued. As research has increasingly recognised the need to encompass ecosystems services other than food production, agroforestry has returned to the limelight. This special issue consolidates and celebrates a generation of research on the topic, with a focus on Africa. Agroforestry has emerged as a system for study in an era where research in rural systems has moved beyond a purely agronomic focus to embrace a more comprehensive view of social–ecological systems [2]. Hence the scope of this issue is far more than production and ecology. It recognises and explores examples of the intimate and interactive flow of influences between the human and environmental aspects of delivering livelihoods at both local and regional scales. Indeed, Africa faces major challenges of food, water and energy security, equity and poverty and environmental degradation. In the context of the livelihoods delivered by rural Africa to about 70% of its billion people, agroforestry can assist with all of these challenges [1 and 3].

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